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2014-10-26
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I'm about to lose whatever credibility I probably never had in the first place, but here goes: I wasn't a fan. It wasn't like the food was bad. It just didn't strike any of my personal fancies.First of all, there's a line. I think we waited maybe 40 minutes beginning at 12:45 on a Saturday, so not really as bad as it could have been. The line feels like it's moving at a decent pace. Once you're seated, the pace is fast, but no one was sour or curt, and I didn't feel pressured to order in three s
First of all, there's a line. I think we waited maybe 40 minutes beginning at 12:45 on a Saturday, so not really as bad as it could have been. The line feels like it's moving at a decent pace.
Once you're seated, the pace is fast, but no one was sour or curt, and I didn't feel pressured to order in three seconds, so while you'll read some negative stories in the other reviews, recognize that different people on different occasions are going to have different experiences.
(Final note: there are English menus and the servers all communicate perfectly in English. Don't expect them to explain the menu though; if you don't know what an E-Fu noodle is, find out before you go. Or give it a whirl anyway.)
Beef brisket noodles are one of my favorite HK things, so obviously we had to get that. I've read varying complaints about the beef, mostly that it's either fatty or chewy or both. It is a little fatty, but that's one of the principal reasons people want to eat it in the first place. My beef was tender, especially as compared with other beef brisket places I've been to in HK.The broth I was not a fan of. It looked good but I just found it way over-salted. That might not be quite it, it could just be that the main flavor was salt, not that there was an unusual amount of it. Anyway, broth is usually my favorite aspect of noodle soup and I just didn't like the stuff here.
As for the E-Fu noodles, I did like them. They're a little mushy and a little bland, but still pretty good.
I give the soup a "C" for acceptable, OK, satisfactory.
The vegetable is lettuce soup w/ oyster sauce. I'm not a fan of this, but again, I recognize personal differences-- my wife really loves it. She says that while it's difficult for boiled lettuce to be amazing, nevertheless this is what boiled lettuce should be like. Good. B?
The curry soup comes with beef tendon instead of beef brisket. Normally I'm somewhat more adventurous (I had crab semen recently, for example), and there's nothing really weird about beef tendon beyond the look, but I just wasn't feeling it and mostly ate around it. The curry sauce is pretty spicy, with a nice curry flavor, not overly bitter like some local curries. We got the rice noodles. Not sure if that's the best choice here, but don't really know what else would be. Overall I liked it and I wish there was more sauce. B+
In the following sense, my opinion doesn't matter. If you're a local, you almost certainly have already been here and have your own opinion. And if you're a tourist or an expat, you should probably go here at least once, regardless of whether you'll like it, because it's a Hong Kong Institution, and there are really fewer of those than you might imagine.
But here's my opinion anyway. I like Mak's better. I like the broth better, the noodles better, and even the brisket. There, I said it. I won't justify it, because personal tastes differ, and if you disagree with me, I understand. Here's what my wife had to say when we left: "I'm glad we came here, because now when I have a brisket noodles craving, I won't feel like I'm missing out by not coming here."
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